Conflict of the Rift
by Sargent Toughie
Summary: What happens when the most powerful being in the universe slips up? What happens when his research falls into the wrong hands? Things get out of hand, that's what. Keep in mind that I don't own any of the characters involved in this story... There's a lot
1. Prolouge 1

Here it is, my biggest writing work to date. Note that this is only my second work on the site, but I've been writing for a bit longer than I have done fanfiction. Regardless, I consider this my biggest masterpiece, and I hope that you enjoy reading it even more then I enjoyed writing it… which was a blast

Without any further ado, here is the first prologue to _wars of the rift, _expect even more worlds to get brought in when the story advances.

Prologue- The snowball effect

_Giving the right circumstances, one small mistake can lead to total catastrophe_

"Ah, welcome home my master, how were your travels?"  
"Rather boring, old friend. I found myself seeing the same sights and doing the same things countless times over, yet it wasn't completely uneventful"  
"How so, master"  
"Stop calling me master, for the last time we are equals. Regardless, I did a little bit of work on the most amusing planeswalking theory. It was more out of boredom than actual practicality"  
"Oh? Please tell me more"  
"It's actually turned up some interesting results, but I'm nowhere near foolish enough to actually try it, now that the proper planeswalking technique is no longer a mystery to me. It involves ripping a hole in the fabric of space in order to… actually here, why don't you just read my notes on the subject, they're right-"

*Fumbling through bag*

"… What's the matter, Urza?"  
"Oh… shit…"

……………………

Such a wondrous discovery had to be some sort of blessing from a god. Mother Brain thought of this as nothing short of an absolutely foolish remark, yet she knew that the information she now held had to be a gift from a higher being then herself, god or no. For years she schemed and plotted possible events that would result in the death of the bounty hunter that caused her so much pain. The brain wanted nothing more in the whole universe then to cause the death of the dreaded Samus Aran. For years she plotted and schemed, tried desperately to invent the perfect plan, yet only came up with mindless ravings that would not even kill a cockroach, but one day one of her henchmen came across the most astounding book, a novel which explains of a way to tear a hole in between _entire universes_. The Mother brain was skeptical of this theory at first, but once the book was fully translated, it spoke of methods and styles of using technology that Mother Brain never before even considered. After a small test, she was stunned to be staring through a rift into a completely different universe.

That would be the solution; surely somebody in an alternate universe had to hold power enough to slay one female bounty hunter! Mother brain almost broke her storage tank out of sheer excitement, her day had finally come. All that she had to do now was pick the right universe, the right individual for the job. Which would prove to be a more daunting task then brain realized, as there were so many living things in her universe alone, finding one to stand out in so many other universes outside hers… It would have been enough to drive any living human insane, but the mother brain was far from human, she was lucky enough to find a perfect candidate for her mission within the shockingly short time frame of only two months.

His hair was pale white, his sword was long enough to match his entire body, his garb were as black as a cloudy midnight sky, on the outside he was an ideal warrior, and on the inside he was laughably easy for a being like Mother brain to manipulate. Yes, this 'Sephiroth' person would be absolutely perfect for eliminating Samus Aran, and act as Mother Brain's sword as she moved to rule over her entire plane of existence. She found her pawn; the hard part of her operation was over.

"_My dear son… Come to me"  
"M-mother!? Jenova!"  
"It is me, child, please come, there is much I need your help with"  
"Anything you ask, mother"_

The deed was done; Mother Brain opened a full sized rift between the two universes from the small hole that she had used to get into contact with him. It appeared in front of Sephiroth as a black portal, leading to the deepest sanctum of Mother Brain's lair.

"_Come to me, my dear, dear son"_

Following even more blindly then mother brain expected, Sephiroth passed through the rift and into an entirely different universe. Once he was through, Mother Brain carefully sealed the rift, ensuring that no trace of it was left behind. Sephiroth stood in mother brain's lair; he stood in a universe outside his own. Although mother brain looked nothing like this 'Jenova' that the men held so dearly, she realized that he was so desperate for his mother's love that he didn't even notice. The man simply lowered his head in a sign of servitude to his 'beloved mother' and he spoke in a quiet tone.  
"My life is yours, mother"

Those were exactly the words that Mother Brain wanted to hear, victory was hers.

…………………..

What the wretched being known as Mother Brain failed to take into account, was that once the fabric of a universe is torn, it cannot be re-sealed. Although Mother Brain did seal the rift in her immediate area, because the rift was made by destroying part of the walls between universes, another hole appeared far away. This new hole began doing what rifts are designed to do, destroy. It destroyed more of the universe protecting walls around it, this 'devouring' rift moved at such a slow pace that it would be unnoticeable to the naked eye, taking whole minutes to devour even molecules, but it was growing, and affecting the universe at large more and more with each passing second.

………………

The walls around the building suddenly caved in, causing uproar on the streets below as debris fell from the sky and crashed to the ground. From the plume of smoke that roared up with each collapse, came a very familiar insane laughter. It came from a mentally unstable Maverick known the world over as "Sigma". Sigma tried countless times to overthrow the world and put himself in charge, yet he failed each and every time, thanks to the heroic duo that protected the world, Megaman X and Zero. X charged forward through the debris towards the laughter, while Zero landed gracefully on his feet after hurdling himself backwards to avoid a falling rock. Zero could hear X shout as he charged towards their sworn enemy.

"Sigma, this time we will finish you once and for all!"  
"Very well then, X, but this time it is I who shall emerge victorious"

The sounds of a battle rang out as smoke cleared up, X was skating across the ground smoothly using his propeller boots, which allowed him to slightly hover above the ground and move at much higher speeds without the use of his legs. He was moving to flank Sigma's left side, the Maverick responded by pulling a rod off of his hip, it suddenly rang to live as purple energy flowed through it; he effortlessly spun it around between his fingers to deflect each and every shot that X let loose. Without even thinking, Zero rushed forward and jumped into the air, slashing down at Sigma's exposed back with his trademark 'Z-saber'. Sigma countered at the last second by turning around and blocking Zero's descending slash with the other side of his rod. After realizing he was being struck with a pincer attack, Sigma rolled backwards and transitioned into a backflip that got him out of the duo's combined attack.

The battle was about to rage on again, as X and Zero began to attack again, the ground beneath their feet began to quake. The streets split like a jagged mountain because of the sheer force of the tremor that was laying assault on the city. Time only caused the tremor to get more violent, and once the duo of maverick hunters got their bearings back, Zero looked at X with an upset glare.  
"Damn it, X, we have to get out of here."  
"But-"  
"This place is falling apart, we can't stay here, we have to leave, now!"

And without another word, Zero vanished in a beam of red light. Zero never fled from a fight without a valid reason, and he was very wise when it came to picking between a suicide battle and a heroic struggle. Before X also took to retreat, he looked over at Sigma, who seemed to be enjoying the violent shaking.  
"Sigma! What did you do!?"

Sigma did not turn to face X, and in his response came a tone of awe.  
"Kid, this one isn't me…"

Buildings everywhere began crumbling and falling to pieces, collapsing under the raw power of the furious tremor. Before X got buried in the rubble, he teleported away from the scene, becoming nothing more than a beam of blue light as he flew into the sky.

X re-appeared after managing to trace Zero's location. And when he finally caught up to his red armored partner, X walked up to see Zero's face showing a look of raw shock. X looked over at the scene, and he was able to understand why. X saw a chaotic nexus of planets raging towards each other, spinning around what looked like a massive black hole. Unable to pull his eyes from the scene, X spoke to his partner.  
"Z- Zero… what are we looking at?"  
"I- I just looked for a place where the earthquake wasn't wreaking havoc. It seemed like the world over was suffering from it. But then I found a place and it's… it's… here"

The two could only stand and watch, as the planets moved ever closer and the black hole got even bigger with each second.

………………………………………….

"Wake up, Chief, we have a problem!"

A familiar voice rang throughout the cut off section of the ship; it was the voice of a certain A.I. that had lived in solitude for what must have been an eternity. Cortana's voice caused Master Chief to awaken from his nap in cryosleep. Because of advances in UNSC technology, it was possible to be frozen alive in a special pod, and then awoken at a later date without aging so much as a day. For several marines it allowed month long voyages across galaxies to pass in the blink of an eye. For this particular Spartan, it was the only reason he was still alive.

The green armored giant forced his way out of the opening pod, if Cortana was waking him up, it meant there was something serious going on.  
"Cortana, what is it?"

Cortana's digital form appeared on a nearby terminal, her bodily motions and her desperate facial expressions proved that she had gone as rampant as is possible for an AI to go, but Cortana was extraordinarily important to the chief, the little blue digital woman standing before him was the only thing he had left that reminded him of his days on reach (save his MJOLNER armor), a time when he was one of many Spartans, when he fought in a squad with dear friends who all died years ago. Cortana was all he had left, and he wasn't going to let her go for anything.

The AI was frantic, it was obvious that whatever Cortana had woken Chief up for, it was important.  
"We've come across something, something big"  
"What, like a UNSC or covenant ship?"  
"No, judging from its size and monstrous gravitational field, I'd say it's a black hole."

Before Chief could respond, he felt the cut off section of the frigate shift in flowing direction violently. And a moment later the world around him became a violent blur of steel. Chief felt as though he was thrown into a tornado the size of a planet. Grabbing onto the nearest pole, Master Chief hung on tighter than he had ever done before. He was gripping the wall so tightly that his armor made gash like dents in the stainless steel of the ship's inner framing. After several minutes of being thrown round like some kind of child's toy, Chief felt the frigate become strangely calm, and then he felt the very familiar feeling of falling.

From somewhere nearby, Cortana was shouting again, calculating the rate of falling against any and all probable reasons for it. But Chief didn't need an AI to tell him what was happening. They had come within a planet's atmosphere, and gravity was pulling them towards the ground like a steel comet from hell.  
"We're crashing, Chief!"

Another familiar feeling came to the Chief as they finally met the ground of whatever planet they landed on. The feeling was familiar, was it was far from the Master Chief's favorite. The force from the impact sent chief crashing violently through several layers of steel, eventually smashing his armor against the ground of this unknown planet. As he laid there, he could hear yet another familiar voice in his mind, this one send pains of nostalgia into the Spartan's heart.

"_heh, crazy fool. Why do you always jump? One of these days you're going to land on something as stubborn as you are, and I don't do 'bits and pieces'"_

The voice of a man Chief greatly respected, Sergeant Johnson. Who had a perfectly valid point about Chief's jumping habits. A black fog enshrouded the chief's eyesight, and darkness took presence over light in the Spartan's gaze.

……………………………………

Ajani Goldmane stood by the side of Jace Belerin as the two planeswalkers looked at the rift, as well as all of the worlds that were being sucked towards one another at a growing rate. As the rift grew bigger, more and more planets became part of the constantly growing vortex. Ajani was the first to speak, setting the tone for the rather unpleasant conversation that was about to take place. The white robed lion man looked over at the rather small human with a gaze of fear and dreaded anticipation.

"It's only a matter of time before all of these worlds collide…"  
"You're right, I was correct to trust this view to you, Ajani, if there's any walker out there I can trust to be honest, it's you""  
"Enough flattery, Belerin… Who do you think caused this disaster? Was it Lilliana? Maybe Gurruk?"  
"Lilliana may be smart, and evil… but she'd never do something like this… and Gurruk? Don't make me laugh."  
"Then who would be capable of doing this? And why would they want to cause such disaster, any planets that don't get completely destroyed are going to be meshed together in a chaotic mixing bag that I can't even begin to fathom."  
"Ajani, I doubt it was a planeswalker that's responsible for this"  
"… Either way, we must find a way to destroy this… this rift, or all existence may be devoured into nothingness"


	2. Prologue 2

So here I am again, with a second batch of wonderful prologues for my ever growing story. As always I'm eager for feedback as to how to improve, so your reviews are welcome and encouraged. Now, without any further ado, please enjoy the second chapter in _Battles of the rift_.

Prologue- Snowball turns into an avalanche

_By the time you see what's going on, it's too late._

Edward walked slowly down the dirt trail with his brother, Alfonse. He looked up into the sky to see the clear blue day lit by a shining sun. It was days like this that Ed appreciated being alive, something about a perfect spring day seemed to put his mind at ease the way nothing else could. As he took a step forward, the familiar metallic clang of his automail leg rang out. While he couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed at the nonorganic step, he wouldn't dream of complaining while his younger brother towered over him trapped in a colossal suit of armor.

Ever since the accident that cause these drastic changes in the boys, they had been searching the world over for something known as the philosopher's stone; a red gem said to grant it's user the power to circumvent the laws of equivalent exchange. This law states that for something to be gained, something of equal or lesser value must be given. It is this law that rests at the very foundation of alchemy. With a stone that skirts around these rules, Ed and Al would be able to return their bodies back to normal, to the way they were back before they made the biggest mistake of their lives. In their travels, they had come within a finger's reach of having the stone several times, but every time something prevented them from actually obtaining the stone. Despite their almost constant failure at obtaining the stone, the Elric brothers remained headstrong and determined to continue on their road towards the legendary red stone. Their fully human and organic bodies were more than worth the battle.

The two of them had walked in silence for several minutes now, but it was the towering suit of armor, Al, that broke this silence.  
"Um, brother? Do you think we should stop by central and pay Colonel Mustang a visit?"

Ed didn't even look up, his eyebrows inclined just at hearing that man's name.  
"Why pay a visit to that stupid paper pusher, so that he gets another shining opportunity to antagonize me."  
"Well, maybe he has some kind of information that could give us a lead towards the philosopher's stone"  
"Give me a break Al, even if we waste our time going up there to central, I already know exactly what he's going to say:"

Ed suddenly broke into a sarcastically low tone, emulating Mustang.  
"I'm sorry Elric, You're so short that I can't even see you over my pile of paperwork. Come back once you've put on a few inches."

Al looked down at his brother. Ed did accidentally bring up that he was unnaturally short for somebody his age. But Al knew better than to say anything about it, if there was any way to get Ed ready for a rumble, it was making fun of his size. Instead, he focused on his brother's reluctance to visit Central.  
"Ed, that was kind of mean, what if he was here to hear you say that?"  
"Yeah, whatever… It doesn't change the fact that we're not going anywhere near that man's office if we can avoid it."  
"Well, I still think that we should-"

Al never got the chance to finish his sentence, because without warning, the ground suddenly started to rumble violently beneath their feet. After a moment's panic, the tremor faded away just as suddenly as it began. Ed groaned in annoyance rather than look around in dismay.  
"Another earthquake? Honestly, it can't be natural that we're being hit with these things every fifteen minutes."

Al's voice had a splash of concern in it, he was always the more cautious and worrying of the two. It made him a good partner for his overly reckless and easily provoked older brother.  
"Ed, I'm getting really worried about these earthquakes. They haven't caused any damage yet, but you can't deny that they're slowly getting stronger with each one. That's why I think we should visit Colonel Mustang, because we have to see if we can do anything to settle down these earthquakes."

Ed sighed, whenever his brother was worried about something, he couldn't help but try and put his mind at ease.  
"Alright, Al, fine. We'll go see the Colonel and see if we can do anything about these earthquakes"  
"Thank you, brother"

With their course decided, the two Elric brothers set down the road to the train station, where they would be able to get a quick and easy ride to central. The train was the Elric brother's main mode of transportation whenever walking somewhere wasn't feasible. However, they didn't even get halfway there when they were hit by yet another earthquake. And this one didn't fade away like the other ones did, instead, this one only grew stronger and more violent. Once they realized that this one was here to stay, the Elric brothers struggled to keep their footing instead of continuing towards the station.  
"Al, get down and grab on to something!"  
"O-okay"

The earthquake grew stronger and more violent by the second, ripping both of the brothers from the ground and knocking them several feet away from each other. Before either was able to recover their footing, the ground between them started to crack and give way. Seeing that he was about to be separated from his brother if he didn't act, Ed tried desperately to get to his feet, stumbling towards the slowly growing gap between them.  
"AL! Give me your hand! Al!!"

Ed's brother was stumbling all over the place, his heavy and encumbering body refused to let him recover his footing.  
"Brother! Stay away from the-"

His words came too late, as Ed came close to the gap, he desperately tried to jump it. Al felt a moment of relief when he saw Ed land on his side, however, that feeling of relief died away quickly when the weak earth beneath Ed's feet gave way, sending him plummeting down into the divide. Ed reacted quickly, clapping his hands together while he was still close to the wall.  
"No! Not if I can help it!"

Using his incredible powers of alchemy, and the fact that his right arm was also made out of automail, Ed transformed his right arm into a hiking pick. Using his transformed arm, he dug himself into the wall, bringing his fall to a stop for the moment. For a few moments, Ed thought he was safe, but that feeling died away quickly when the tremor grew even stronger, causing his pick to lose its grip on the wall. As he fell, he could hear his little brother's voice shout out to him.  
"Big brother!"

This was the last thing he heard, though, as he quickly fell out of earshot. Ed fell through that gap for what must have been hours, he fell for so long that he got an eerie feeling that he was no longer even on his home world. He had this strange sensation that he wasn't even falling at all, more like he was floating through space. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see. Because of his delirium, he couldn't even tell when he eventually pressed against the soft feeling of a planet's surface again. As he landed smoothly on this mysterious place's ground, he couldn't even maintain the ability to remain conscious.

Edward Elric fainted from the disorientation of his ordeal, his new location a complete mystery to him.

………………………………………………

In the depths of space, the rift grew even more powerful. The earliest of the worlds began to collide with one another, causing destruction on a level previously unfathomed by any civilization. What originally started as merely large-scale earthquakes rapidly grew more and more violent, leading to hurricanes and seas of lava wreaking havoc on countryside and city alike. Some of the smaller worlds were destroyed entirely, while several of the larger ones lost massive pieces of their identity. Merging together in the rift to create a new, distorted world made of thrown together pieces of all the planets that were caught in the rift. It was much like the creation of a normal planet on an extreme scale. Instead of small particles of dirt and debris colliding to form a planet piece by piece, entire worlds were colliding to create massive chunks.

This new world became the new home to many of the different civilizations that had their planets blasted away in the fury of the rift. Several of these civilizations were still in the recovery stages from their destruction in the rift, but it would only be a matter of time before they ran into each other, with so many different kinds of people with radically different lifestyles colliding for the first time in a place that wasn't even supposed to exist, any intellectual paying attention realized the high potential for the one thing that could make this rift crisis worse. War, on a scale never before fathomed by the human brain could erupt at any second.

* * *

Suzaku gently slumped the cockpit of his Knightmare, the Lancelot. His white and gold mech. Suit was just engaged in battle against the black knights. The battle looked to be one of the most brutal yet in the long running war with the organization bent on destroying Bretania. The black knights were led by a master tactician who never showed his face. He wore a black cloak and a mask, calling himself 'Zero'. Zero may wear a mask, but that couldn't stop Suzaku from easily telling what kind of person he was. Zero was a vile excuse for a human, one with no concept of humanity or morality. If it meant killing a thousand innocent people to achieve his objective, Zero would do it in a heart-beat. Suzaku simply couldn't tolerate that kind of war, he swore that he would fight to prevent Zero from overthrowing Bretania, even though he did agree that the country needed to change. Unlike Zero though, Suzaku swore to change Bretania from the inside, using honor and virtue, two tools that Zero wouldn't have a clue how to use.

The war against the black knights was a long and brutal, and the firefight that was taking place leading up to the Cataclysm looked as though it would be one of the most critical for Bretania to win to date. The fight had lasted for several hours when, just as it seemed Bretania was gaining the upper hand, furious storms broke out, demolishing knightmares as rolling thunder caused raging rockslides from the nearby mountains. Mother Nature proved herself to be the determining factor in who would win this battle, as the raging weather completely routed both armies. Thanks to his expert piloting, and the noble sacrifices of brave bretanian soldiers below him, Suzaku's kightmare, Lancelot was able to make it through the storm relatively unscathed.

For a while, Suzaku was dead in the water while Lancelot's systems went through the recovery mode. After what may have been hours, Suzaku was able to gather his bearings mentally at roughly the same time that Lancelot came back online. The first thing he did was survey the area; piles of demolished rubble littered the once raging battle field. Knightmares with large rocks protruding from their metal frames seemed to be everywhere; the destruction was on a level that Suzaku had only seen a few times before. Suzaku refused to give up hope that nobody survived though, to do that would be to give up a part of himself that he may never get back. Every time a battle turned out this way, he died a little bit inside. Suzaku clicked on Lancelot's communication system, speaking on a general channel to anybody that could be in the area.  
"This is Suzaku Kururugi, the knight of seven. Anybody still alive in the area, please respond."

The only thing that greeted Suzaku's channel was an eerie silence that tore into his soul. Regardless, in a last ditch effort to preserve part of his heart, Suzaku called out again.  
"Anybody! Black Knight or Bretanian, please tell me you're still alive!"

The second time around, a voice returned communication to the Lancelot, however, it did not bring pleasant words with it. The voice was strangely lifeless, and the sound of it sent a chill down Suzaku's spine.  
"… They're all dead, I killed anybody that remained after the storm."  
"Wh- who are you? What do you mean?"  
"It doesn't matter who I am, because you're going to die next."

A shadow appeared right over the Lancelot, acting quickly, Suzaku accelerated his suit out of the shadow. Doing this saved him from a downward sweeping attack from a flying knightmare. Before Suzaku could get a look at the enemy suit, but after the attack, the voice came through Lancelot's comm. Again.  
"You dodged my initial attack, not bad"

Suzaku pulled out Lancelot's primary sword, the blade glowed red with destructive energy.  
"Who are you? What have I done to provoke you?"

The knightmare landed several feet away from the Lancelot, right away Suzaku could tell that it was no ordinary knightmare frame. For instance, it didn't have the trademark cockpit block on its back that every knightmare frame since the initial model was stuck with. If somebody found a way to create a knightmare without the giant target on their back, it was a colossal step forward in knightmare technology. Another thing that stood out about this model was the lack of accelerator wheels on the back of the feet, if this model didn't need them then it was yet another breakthrough of epic proportions. The same lifeless voice as before spoke again, this time it answered a few of Suzaku's questions.  
"I am a Gundam of Celestial being, and you are my enemy… Because you promote war"

To Suzaku, this statement brought up more questions than it answered.  
"Gundam? Celestial Being? What on earth are you talking about?"  
"…"

The Gundam dove forward again, extending a blade that stuck out of its right arm. Predicting where his enemy was going to strike. Suzaku easily dodged the attack and stabbed at the Gundam's head. The blade sunk through; however, Suzaku was alarmed to see that the Gundam continued his assault by bringing a second blade off of its side towards the Lancelot's chest. Luckily, Suzaku had done more damage than he thought with his strike, because although the Gundam's sword dealt the Lancelot a critical blow, the beam saber missed the cockpit by several inches.  
"I'm your enemy because I promote war? What kind of nonsense is that?"

Surprisingly, the Gundam pulled away, it started to float away into the air.  
"My mission here is done; consider yourself lucky that eliminating you would take too long without my primary cameras. We are Celestial Being; our goal is the complete elimination of war."

As the Gundam floated off into the air Suzaku took a moment to reflect on what just occurred.  
"Celestial Being…. The end of war… They're no better than the Black knights!"

The heavily damaged Lancelot began moving in the direction of the Bretanian headquarters, if he was lucky, he would be able to report in and get Lancelot repaired. Suzaku got a feeling that he would encounter that Gundam again, and next time he went against that suit, he would make sure that he was prepared. On the way he finalized and checked over the recording of his encounter with the Gundam, even though the battle was short, this data would no doubt be very valuable come round two.

* * *

The aging lion man stepped into the decrepit shack. The lady-knight he was looking for had done a wonderful job of hiding herself in some depressing scenery. Ajani Goldmane spoke in a quiet voice through the shack, he knew she could hear him.  
"Elspeth, I know you're in here"

Silence continued to dominate the shack, so after a few seconds without a response, Ajani spoke again, stepping further into the shack with his paw like feet.  
"I know you still remember what happened in Alara, I'm sure that thoughts of what happened haunt your every dream."

Silence  
"Well, it's happening again. And this time it's on a far grander scale, Elspeth, we need your help."

A woman emerged from the shadows, although she was likely in her mid forties, she looked like somebody much younger, such was the gift given to planeswalkers. She was remarkably beautiful, or at least Ajani assumed so, he never was a very good judge of human beauty. The fact that Elspeth even showed her face to Ajani meant that he had her ear. Knowing this to be true, the lion of light continued to speak.  
"What happened at alara was a natural occurrence. The shards were destined to return from the moment they broke apart, what's happening now is… it's different, surely you've sensed it, the massive fluctuations in the multiverse, the sensation of entire worlds that were never supposed to meet coming together."

Elspeth spoke with the voice of one who had lost everything, Ajani didn't blame her for being as depressed as she was.  
"… I have"  
"Then you must help us. If we don't uncover the cause of this disaster then every universe in existence could be in jeopardy, imagine what would happen if we allow this rift to continue growing? It could be the apocalypse of all existence."  
"… Bant was my home, I watched it fall to war. Are you telling me that Bant's fate could be shared by others?"  
"Not simply 'others' Elspeth. Every plane of existence out there will suffer Bant's fate."  
"… I won't allow that, where do I start?"

End of prologue-2

Now that the backstory is all set, my next update will be kicking off the battles. As I said at the beginning, your feedback is a vital part of me making the most of this story, also: since this story has basically limitless room for branching, if you have a universe or character I haven't introduced yet, please speak up. Do keep in mind though that this isn't the end to the universes getting involved. The cast of characters taking part in the rift wars will be nothing short of daunting.

Regardless, please tell me of any feedback and/or character suggestions you may have. I would like to make this as much of an interactive experience for you (the reader) as possible.

Until next time  
-Sargent Toughie


	3. Prologue 3

Egads! How long has it been since I updated this story! Long enough? Alright, I'm sorry to all of those that could have been looking forward to this next chapter, but I got so absorbed in writing my other two stories I've got going right now that I just put this crossover from hell on the backburner. Either way, I hope that I make up for it with the raw amount of unfiltered violence that is going to take place over this next chapter. So, with no further delay, I hope you enjoy part 3 of _Chaos of the rift._

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, I'm just borrowing them for a little while._  
_

* * *

_**Chaos of the rift- part 1**_

Master Chief slowly opened his eyes, the ship had crash landed on a large mountain, and he had fallen out and slammed into what appeared to be some sort of shrine. Standing up, he grabbed his helmet and shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the cloudiness that had consumed it upon his crash landing. Looking behind him, he saw the wreckage of the ship, heading inside swiftly, he grabbed a few nearby weapons and proceeded to tear the ship apart in search of a very special chip to him. He wasn't going to leave Cortana behind, he refused to stop searching until she was reunited with him. He and that AI had been through too much together for him to even consider leaving her on this destroyed half of a ship. Luckily, it didn't take him very long before he heard the familiar voice that made him sigh in relief.  
"Chief! I'm over here!"

Moving over to the voice, Master Chief was relieved to see the small blue digital figure of Cortana on a pedestal underneath some rubble. As soon as she was uncovered, Cortana crossed her arms and smiled at the green armored Goliath.  
"Relieved to see me?"

Master chief reached for the chip, speaking as he pulled it from the pedestal and put it into the slot in the back of his helmet.  
"That's one way to put it."

He heard Cortana sigh a little bit in his mind, it was always an odd sensation whenever Cortana first transferred from an external object into his helmet, like she was speaking directly into his mind, it always took a few moments to get adjusted to.  
"Alright then... so do you have any idea where we crash landed?"  
"Not a clue, but we're not going to figure it out by sitting around here..."

Stepping out of the ship, Master Chief looked around the shrine, it appeared like something out of Earth's ancient Greece, which he recognized from the holo-vids that he watched back in his spartan training. It looked like it was only recently destroyed by the crash of the shuttle, which confused Chief quite a bit.  
"... Odd."

He didn't have any longer to reflect on where he was, as he sensed a presence coming behind him. Turning towards the presence, he saw a pale man with red tattoos running across his face and his shoulder. The pale white skin gave him an extremely unnatural look, and the man had no hair on his entire face except for a goatee, on his back were a pair of short blades, on his wrists, a pair of leather armlets that had chains running up and down them. Just from the first glance that chief gave them, it looked as though the chains were actually attached to his own flesh. This man was incredibly powerful, Chief could tell simply from the way he carried himself. Stepping towards the green armored man, the ghost of sparta spoke in a shocked tone.  
"By the gods... what... are you?"

Master Chief stood up straight, finding himself looking down towards the shorter, but just as imposing man.  
"I'm a Spartan."

The pale man's eyes widened a tiny bit, but he didn't back away, not even the tiniest hair.  
"You... a spartan? Don't make me laugh! As the ghost of Sparta, I can tell that you are no spartan."

Master Chief started to glare a little bit beneath his helmet, this pale man had just insulted his life's training, his life's purpose, it wasn't something that he took lightly.  
"Say that again..."

The ghost of Sparta drew his blades, attaching them to the chains on his wrists.  
"We both know where this is going to end... come at me!"

Chief didn't need a bigger statement then that, he stormed at Kratos, swinging his metal fist at the pale Spartan's head. Kratos ducked away, bringing his blade up towards Chief's chest, only to have it scrape against the hard metal and fly away without leaving more then a scratch. Kratos then rolled away as Chief's elbow fell downward after the punch. The conflict didn't last more then a second, but if gave both Spartans a taste of what the other was capable of. Both Master Chief and Kratos came to the realization that the other fighter wasn't somebody to be underestimated, and that this battle would be much more interesting then they initially realized.

Kratos was the one that continued the battle, using his superior range to his advantage as he swung his blades at Chief from afar. After avoiding the swinging blades, Chief charged in and attempted to shoulder ram Kratos, only to have Kratos roll out of the way once more and bring his blades back, scraping them against the back of Chief's armor. The blades once again did very little damage, but Kratos was frustratingly good at avoiding the attacks of the oncoming green armored giant. Chief continued to attack the pale Spartan, coming at him with a flurry of downward punches that would split his head open if one of them were to land. And that's when things started to get a little bit weird. After a certain number of punches, Kratos slid back to his feet and brought his blades up in front of him, summoning an army of ghost Spartans to surround him, all with shields and spears. Before Chief had a chance to react, the spears rang out towards him and pierced though his armor, as he felt the tips of the spears puncture through his body, he was shocked as they vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving no trace of a stab wound other then the waves of pain coming from Master Chief's shoulder.  
"What was that?"

Before he had an answer, Kratos was advancing on him again, bringing his blades downward with incredible force towards Chief's head. Rolling out of the path of the strike, Kratos grabbed at the chains while they were extended, pulling Kratos towards him. He was pleasantly surprised as the ghost of sparta was dragged along by his chains towards the green armored giant. Using this to his advantage, Chief hammered Kratos with a punch to his stomach, which sent him rocketing back and slamming into one of the walls of the shrine. Thinking that the battle was over, Master Chief turned his back to the ghost of Sparta and started heading towards the bottom of the shrine, he still had to figure out where he was.

However, Chief was halted when he heard the sound of breaking rubble behind of him, turning around, he was stunned to see Kratos returning to his feet, and getting back into a fighting stance. Returning his attention to the fatigued man, Master Chief felt the ache in his shoulder from the magic stab start to eat at him a bit more. Kratos would be tougher to bring down then Chief gave him credit for, it was a battle that he would remember for a long time to come. Kratos charged at Master Chief again, Swinging his blades at his neck. Master Chief backed away from the strike to avoid it, if those blades here to hit a part of his body that wasn't covered in the extremely thick and durable armor, it would likely punch right through the layer of black film that covered what was left of his body. It was likely that Kratos had a similar idea, so Chief would have to be much more careful from this point onward.

The two battled for what must have been hours, neither one getting an advantage over the other. The two of them gradually grew more and more fatigued, the battle eventually wound down, the shrine completely and totally demolished by the wreckage that was caused by the two warring Spartans. They stood on opposite sides of the shrine, both of them panting heavily. Master Chief stood straight up, exiting his combat stance.  
"Let's call this a draw... I have things that I have to do"

Kratos also got out of his stance, putting his blades away and nodding. Odd, it seemed like he was almost about to smile as he spoke.  
"Alright then, a draw it is... Spartan"

Chief gave him a nod and headed down the stairs of the shrine, Cortana spoke up for the first time since the two started fighting.  
"You enjoyed that fight... Didn't you?"  
"Sure did"

* * *

Alucard was a bit confused when he woke from his slumber, he had felt a massive shift in the world, as though it was being sucked into something much larger. Emerging into the outside world, he was relieved to see that the air outside was permanently enshrouded in some sort of black fog, which didn't allow any sunlight through. Alucard couldn't be out in the sun, as it caused him to burst into flames instantly. Dawning his favorite black outfit and his red cloak, he set out on a mission to find out exactly what was behind this shift in the air of the world. He looked a lot like an 18th century gentleman, which fit, as that was the time period that he was born in. It had been a moment so monumental that it had ripped him from the depths of his eternal sleep, so it was no small force, it was nothing to joke about. Alucard had to have answers, could this be a sign that his father was resurrected yet again? Would Alucard once again have to aid the Belmont family in sealing his unholy father away? As he set out, he kept a careful watch on the skies, if it looked like sun was about to break though, he'd have to quickly take shelter. However, it didn't seem like that would be an issue, as the black fog blocked out the entire skies above, not letting out even the tiniest trace of sunlight.

Not long after he set out, Alucard heard a rumor about a vampire at a local school, apparently one of the students there had a bit of a reputation among them. Alucard thought deeply on this, such a thing was impossible, his father was supposed to be one of the only vampires out there, and with Alucard in eternal hibernation, the bloodline never had a chance to spread. So how was it possible? And moreover, it seemed unlikely that any vampire would ever do something like attend school, he would likely steal the lives from the students in a second and move on. Still, even a rumor as outrageously silly as a vampire at a high school wasn't something that Alucard could just ignore, so he set out to find out more, perhaps it would give him a lead about the power surge that woke him up.

It didn't take Alucard long to uncover the truth behind this rumor, as he explored the nearby woods, finding the man in question. He looked like an average teenager, likely spent more time on his hair in the mornings then he did any other activity, from the looks of him. Shaking his head lightly, Alucard didn't sense any of the power that came with being a creature of the darkness, it seemed that the only thing he really had in common with a vampire was his pale face, and that wasn't that had to find in the modern age, with the recent advances in technology, many people his age choose to remain in the basement of their houses and entertain themselves with virtual worlds. Of course, he didn't have the body composition of one that had such hobbies, so that was able to be ruled out rather quickly. Stepping up to the assumed teenager, Alucard kept his blade hidden, a sword that became cloaked in a blue flame whenever he swung it, fueled by the unholy powers that he carried in his veins.  
"You're the one that they accuse of being a vampire?"

The assumed teenager turned around, his eyes showed little emotion in them, it was a little odd, that one his age would be so lifeless. Still, there was no real evidence that he was a creature of the darkness, nothing yet.  
"What does it matter to you?"

Alucard stepped closer, dark energy coming off of him in waves.  
"Just tell me, are you, or aren't you... You're like no vampire I've ever seen before"

The assumed teenager shook his head, apparently he got a vague idea about what Alucard was, as his composition stiffened a bit.  
"... I am a vampire, why do you care?"

Alucard pulled his blade from his cloak, pointing it outward towards the other 'vampire'.  
"This isn't a game, we vampires are unholy creatures of the night, my own father has tried to exterminate humanity multiple times. You can't call yourself a vampire just because it makes you sound more interesting, it'll get you killed."

The other 'vampire' seemed to take offense to this, stepping towards Alucard with a glare.  
"You don't know the slightest thing about me! I've killed before!"

Alucard couldn't help but get slightly amused at the sudden outburst, tilting his head backwards and speaking in a slightly livelier voice. He knew that this had absolutely nothing to do with that power surge now, but this was a loose end that he had to tie up before things got out of hand.  
"I've slaughtered before... More people then you've ever met have died by my hand. I'm going to tell you this right now, if you insist on calling yourself a vampire, I'm going to have to erase you from this world, as the world is better off without our kind."

The other 'vampire' seemed to get even more enraged at this, balling his fist and glaring at Alucard.  
"I dare you to try it."  
"... Very well"

Alucard suddenly vanished, appearing behind the 'vampire' instants later and swinging the handle of his blade at him, the 'vampire' didn't expect such incredible speed, and fell to the ground. However, he recovered quickly and charged at Alucard. He moved faster then a mortal man would be able to, however, he was nowhere near able to match Alucard's abilities. Vanishing again, Alucard appeared right above the 'vampire and brought his heel down on his head, smashing him to the ground. Pointing his blade at the back of the 'vampire''s neck, Alucard prepared to deliver the killing blow, this one was far weaker then the ones that had come before him. However, as he prepared to finish off the 'vampire', as he prepared to dive the blade into his neck and finish off the defeated foe, a high pitched voice rang out. It was like that of an immature man that was trying to emulate a girl's voice.  
"Nooo! You can't kill him!"

Alucard turned his attention towards the voice, where he saw an extremely unusual person. He wore a skintight suit that mixed between bright red and black, and he wore a ninja mask on his face of the same colors. A white satchel came across his right shoulder towards his hip, which proved to carry an insane amount of weaponry. He had two handguns attached to his belt, a rifle on his back, and two katana swords that were also strapped to the satchel. He jumped from the tree that he was perched on and suddenly vanished, warping to right behind Alucard. Alucard turned towards the rather unusual man again, confused by both his sudden appearance and his words. Before Alucard had a chance to speak, the man butted in, his voice now that of an immature man that wasn't trying to emulate a girl's voice any longer.  
"Do you have any idea how many death threats the writer's going to get if you kill Edward Cullen? Seriously, I'm all for a good kill, but just let this one go."

Alucard was a bit surprised by this, keeping his feet firmly on Edward so that he couldn't escape, he focused his attention on the new arrival.  
"Death threats? Writer? Edward Cullen? Start making sense, now"

The new arrival pointed down at Edward, speaking in a halfway mocking voice.  
"This guy's name is Edward Cullen, now, while he may not seem like anything special to us dudes, he has a colossal fangirl army just waiting to strike at the slightest sign of anything wrong. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if the writer got a few threats just because you kicked his ass."

He paused for a moment, giving Alucard a brief hope that it was his turn to speak before butting in yet again.  
"So trust me on this one, let him go"

Alucard shook his head in confusion, however, this newcomer had a strange air about him. It wasn't quite the dark energy that Alucard and his bloodline had, but it was far from normal. Stepping off Edward's head, he put his sword away.  
"Leave... now"

Edward rose to his feet and immediately fled the scene with his tail between his leg. The red and black garbed man pulled out one of his guns and shot a few rounds after him to speed him up.  
"Woo hoo! Look at that little ninnyhammer vampire wannabee go!"

Alucard coughed, his attempt to stop himself from smirking at this man's unusual, but rather amusing behavior.  
"You're sure that he was a vampire? Mr..."

The red and black garbed man put his handgun away, turning towards Alucard.  
"Name's Deadpool, the Merc with the mouth. And yes, he was a vampire... kind of"

Alucard crossed his arms, confused by Deadpool's statement.  
"He didn't seem like any vampire that I had ever encountered before. He was far too... soft. And I was able to overpower him far too easily."

Deadpool wrapped his arm around Alucard's shoulder, speaking in a quiet voice.  
"Trust me, bro. If you thought he was a bit of a joke now... you don't even want to know what happens when he's in the sunlight"  
"... What happens when he's exposed to the sun?"

Deadpool outright ignored the question, spinning away and looking at Alucard.  
"So what are you doing here?"

Alucard decided to let him off the hook and not push the issue. He had bigger things to worry about then Edward.  
"I need to find out what that power surge was... the power that woke me from my slumber... It was like nothing I had ever felt before"

Deadpool paused for a second, rubbing the chin of his mask.  
"Sooo... you're gonna go around and try to figure out what happened, right?"  
"That's my current plan."  
"Awesome! I'm coming with you!"

Alucard's head shot up, that caught him off guard.  
"Excuse me?"  
"Well, if you're going to be taking a trip around the world, odds are that you're going to encounter all kinds of epic battles, and struggles against impossible odds... and those are just too awesome for me to pass up. It's been a long time since I've had a chance to have this much fun, there's no way I'm gonna pass it up."

Alucard pressed his palm against his face, sighing deeply in a mixture of annoyance and confusion.  
"... There's no way to convince you otherwise... is there?"  
"Sorry, bro, I'm stuck on you like a fat kid on a cupcake"  
"... Fantastic"

* * *

The Ra Cailum gently rocked it's way through space, drifting along on an aimless course while those on board tried to get a handle on what had just happened. The Ra Cailum was a ship that was under the command of Lieutenant Amuro Ray, famed newtype and pilot of the 0079 Gundam, which he used to lead the way for the earth federation's victory against Zeon. Since then, Amuro had taken to the sidelines and allowed other pilots to take the spotlight in the battle for earth. However, recently Amuro was put at the head of Londo bell, an earth federation force with authorization to act of it's own accord in order to preserve the safety of earth and her colonies. To ensure that every battle ended in success, Amuro was put in the cockpit of a gundam once again for the first time since the war against Zeon. As the pilot of the Nu Gundam, he was a borderline unstoppable force.

However, all of that was before they encountered the black hole in the middle of deep space. During one of their routine scans, the Ra Cailum came across a couple of very disturbing signals, a warped SOS that was being distorted by some sort of interference. Never being one to ignore an SOS, Amuro ordered the Ra Cailum to advance towards the signals. Everybody was shocked when things took a turn for the worse, as the ship closed in on the signal, they were suddenly sucked into a black hole, and were tossed through dead space for several seconds before the ship stabilized. Things appeared normal when the black hole freed them, and the people of the Ra Cailum had no way of knowing that they had just been pulled into a war like none they could ever imagine before. Thinking that the worse was behind them, Amuro returned his attention to the SOS, taking the Nu Gundam out to investigate the signals, which were now oddly clear. Clicking over to the channel that the SOS was broadcasting on, Amuro had to pause in shock when he heard the contents of the signals.  
"This is Kira Yamato, pilot of the Earth Forces' Freedom Strike Gundam, anybody out there, please respond... Help me!"

Amuro put the Nu Gundam's thrusters into overdrive, he had never heard anything about the Earth federation manufacturing another Gundam, but it wouldn't be the first time that they had hidden something away from him. Amuro was a newtype, a human who's mind had evolved in order to adapt to the rigors and challenges of space, and that was something that scared most natural, earthborn people. As a result, Amuro was still only a lieutenant, despite all of the things he had done in the name of the Earth Federation. Of course, that was all water under the bridge right now, he was receiving an SOS from an Earth Federation Gundam, it was his duty to help.  
"This is Amuro Ray of Londo Bell, talk to me, what's happening out there"

When Kira responded, Amuro took note of how young he sounded. Of course, Amuro was only 15 when he first got in the cockpit of the 0079, so he couldn't say much. Kira sounded panicked, and the sounds of gunfire were starting to ring out through the comm.  
"I- I have no idea! These mobile suits just started attacking me out of nowhere! I didn't do anything to provoke them!"

A third voice suddenly rang out through the comm, this one sounding quite a bit older then Kira, a man in roughly his mid twenties from the sound of his voice.  
"That's because they're pawns of the Dark Gundam, they don't need any reason to attack!"

Amuro was getting closer to the scene of the battle, he could visibly see a single Gundam engaging several mobile suits at once. It was forced to the defensive, but it was doing an admirable job of evading and defending against all of the attacks of the assaulting squad. Kira spoke to the third voice, confused by it's sudden appearance.  
"Who are you? What's the dark Gundam?"

Amuro saw in the corner of his camera that another mobile suit was approaching the battle field, this one dangerously resembling a Gundam as well.  
"My name is Domon Kasshu from Neo Japan, and don't worry about what the dark Gundam is right now, I don't have time to explain."

Amuro was tempted to ask Domon what Neo Japan was, and just as confused as Kira when it came to talk of the dark Gundam. As he closed in on the battleground, he deployed his funnels to engage the squad. Funnels were automated turrets that were designed to function with a newtype Gundam, as a normal person wouldn't have the brain capacity to manage all of these weapons. They were fantastic weapons, and gave newtypes an unprecedented edge on the battlefield. The funnels tore through several of the attacking suits, and caused the Freedom strike Gundam to turn towards the Nu Gundam, Kira's voice showing an amount of surprise in it.  
"Those are Dragoons! So you're a coordinator as well?"

Amuro paused in surprise, not sure what Kira was talking about.  
"Are you talking about my funnels? What's a coordinator?"

The conversation was about to continue when Domon's Gundam sliced through one of the attacking suits, he spoke to the two of them in a risen voice that showed a certain amount of urgency in it.  
"Can't you two talk about this when we're not fighting the dark Gundam?"

Domon snapped both Kira and Amuro back to reality, they'd be able to sort out this confusion later. For now, they had a battle to focus on. Unfortunately for the attacking force, the Nu Gundam, the Freedom Strike Gundam, and the Burning Gundam trio was an overwhelming force that completely wiped out the attacking mobile suits in a matter of minutes. As the three Gundams recovered from the battle, they began to talk among themselves, sorting out this mess that had just spilled out. It was only a few moments before the Ra Cailum caught up to the three, and Amuro proposed that they take the conversation inside, where it would be much easier to discuss things comfortably.

An hour later, Amuro sat in the briefing room with Kira and Domon, the three of them had just shared their part of the story. Kira was investigating a disturbance that his ship was about to encounter when his Gundam was forced through a black hole, like Amuro's ship. And Domon was investigating the Dark army, which is what he called those mobile suits that had attacked Kira. Unfortunately, he also slipped into a black hole. All three of the stories had one thing in common, the black hole that they had encountered. Kira and Amuro had refrained from talking about the cultural differences, and after a bit of thinking on the subject, Amuro decided that a coordinator was simply what they called Newtypes where Kira was from. Instead, they decided to focus on what Domon was talking about, he was sharing information with the other two Gundam pilots about something that he had called the Dark Gundam. As Domon finished, Amuro crossed his arms, thinking deeply on the words that had just been shared with him.  
"the abilities to Self recover, self multiply, and self evolve... Such a machine would be almost unstoppable"

Domon nodded, looking up at Amuro.  
"That's why I have to destroy it, before things get out of hand... before it destroys earth."

Amuro paused, thinking for a few more moments. Domon certainly didn't seem like he was lying, and Amuro had gotten some bad feelings off of the mobile suits that had attacked Kira. They didn't seem alive, like zombies that were fighting in space.  
"If this thing really is the threat to humanity that you say it is, then you can rely on Londo bell to aid you in the destruction of the Dark Gundam."

Domon's eyes widened a bit, he rose from his chair and looked Amuro dead in the eye.  
"W- would you really do that!"  
"Of course, it's my duty as a member of Londo bell to act in Earth's best interest, and this Dark Gundam doesn't sound like something that we can just ignore."

Domon smiled a bit, nodding slightly.  
"If that's the case, I won't refuse your help... Thanks Amuro"

Amuro nodded, turning his attention to the teenager that was sitting in the chair on the other side of the room.  
"Now for you... Kira Yamato was it? Since we're both Earth Federation, you're free to stay aboard the Ra Cailum until we find your ship."

Amuro bit his tongue on the rest of his sentence, he had never heard of a federation ship named the 'archangel'. Then again, it was likely another secret project that the federation was running, the federation had a bit of a reputation for not letting the public know about it's better projects. Amuro remembered how the white base was a top secret experiment during his first days as a pilot. Keeping this in mind, he found it easier to trust Kira then he normally would. After a moment's pause, Amuro continued to speak to Kira.  
"Of course, if we're going to be running into more of the dark army, we're going to need all the talented pilots that we can get."

Kira muttered under his breath without looking up at Amuro, just barely loud enough for Amuro to hear what he was saying.  
"You're asking me to join a war that has nothing to do with me..."

Amuro shook his head and ignored the muttering, he himself had a similar mindset when he first got in the cockpit of the Gundam all those years ago. Kira would pull through, he was sure. Amuro saw a lot of himself in the young man, Kira reminded Amuro a lot of himself when he was Kira's age. Heading for the door, Amuro stretched and sighed, there was a lot that they were going to have to figure out over the next few days. Whatever that black hole was, it had opened up a whole new world of problems for Amuro. Of course, even with the development of the Dark Gundam, Amuro still had his eyes on one man's back.  
"Char... what are you doing right now?"


	4. Chapter 1

Finally, felt like updating this story again. With so many stories that I've decided to write at once, it's kinda gotten jarring to keep track of which one is due for an update. It doesn't help either that I hardly ever feel like writing these days, unless a burst of inspiration hits me. Well, I hope it's worth the wait, here's the first real chapter of _Conflict of the Rift._

_(It's the first real chapter because the plot finally gets moving.)_

As usual, none of the characters in this tale belong to me. But it would take too long to list out all of the characters and all of the companies that they belong to, so I hope that'll be enough to settle it. _  
_

_

* * *

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**Conflict of the Rift**

**Chapter 1 (for real this time): Shadows and Conspiracies.**

Samus Aran was famed as being the greatest bounty hunter in the known universe. There were countless instances where this powerful woman saved countless lives, did away with terrible creatures, and liberated colonies. However, there are some things that even the great Samus Aran simply can't be prepared to deal with. For instance, this particular bounty hunter had no possible way of knowing that she was about to take her first steps into a war far greater then any she had been dragged into before.

An odd message had been relayed to her ship, it's source unknown.  
_"Go to the coordinates sent with this message, somebody very close to you is in dire need of help."_

Samus was no idiot, this certainly wasn't the first time that she had walked into a trap. Odds were, it was just a small group of pirates that she could get the drop on rather easily. If they wanted to spring a trap, Samus was game to play along for a little while... She was having a rather boring afternoon, anyway.

The planet presented was rather close by, so it only took about an hour before the orange armored bounty hunter touched down on the earth, well prepared for any sort of ambush that could have awaited her. She looked around, this was already rather unusual, in that the planet presented to her looked habitable by human life. Typically, these ambushes took place on a deserted tundra, or a forsaken space station. This place, where Samus had touched down, was a rainforest. To be more specific, it was a large rock plateau surrounded by rainforest. Samus couldn't help but give these particular ambushers some credit, at least the location was original. Samus took a small step forward, she checked the ground beneath her feet for possible land mines, a favorite of pirates lying in wait to attack... She didn't see any, actually, she didn't detect any signs of life, anywhere. Did these people have cloaking devices of some kind? If so, the situation just got considerably more dangerous.

Samus had gotten out of dangerous situations before, though, it still wasn't anything that she couldn't handle. She took another step forward, and then another one, and then a third on top of it. Still nothing, something was odd here, usually they staged their attack by this point. Samus looked around again, this time using her regular vision instead of scan mode. Anything was possible, even the tiniest twitch of the leaves in the trees were noteworthy at this point.

Then, Samus felt something behind her, she didn't pick it up on any sensors, she just felt it. Samus jumped forward and spun around a full 180 degrees, she brought up the rifle attached to her arm in the same swift motion. What she saw... definitely wasn't a pirate. Silver hair fell down to about his heels, he wore a black outfit, and carried a sword in his had that was even longer then he was tall. He was certainly handsome, but Samus wasn't in the market for a relationship, so that didn't affect her at all. This man stepped forward and pulled his sword from his side, despite the rifle that was aimed at him. His voice came out sleek and calm as he spoke, what a day this was turning into.  
"Are you the one? Are you the one that has caused so much trouble for mother?"

Mother? There was only one being that Samus ever knew to be named 'mother'. But that _thing_ should have been blasted apart years ago, who was this person? Who was the person that he was referring to as 'mother'? Despite her curiosity on the subject, she kept her rifle trained on him, prepared to attack if he were to make a single move that seemed out of place. After a few seconds of silence, the silver haired person spoke again, his tone unchanging.  
"Your silence tells me that you are. Very well then..."

He assumed a fighting stance with his unnaturally long sword, was he really planning on fighting somebody like Samus with such a primitive weapon? Swords had been outdated for generations, and here he was, planning on seriously fighting her with one. Let alone the lack of power armor, one shot from Samus' rifle would rip a hole right through his chest, this guy didn't stand a chance, yet here he was, ready for battle in his black robes and with his antique sword.

Samus had been in some pretty unusual situations over the years, but this one had to take the cake.

Stunningly, this person moved forward at blinding speeds, he swung his sword across her stomach in what would have been a swift, clean strike were it not for Samus' reflexes. The bounty hunter rolled backwards and jumped up into the air, and fired several bursts from her rifle at him, all of which he was able to dodge around and miss. Something was different about this man, normal people don't move that fast, that much was certain already. The attacker followed Samus into the air and swiped with his blade again, Samus was able to avoid the swings by rolling into a ball, thus minimizing her size. As she uncoiled herself, she watched as the tip of the sword scraped against the rock beneath, shockingly, the blade was slicing through the raw stone as though it were butter. This actually caused Samus to shiver a little, if it were slicing through stone that easily, the odds of it being able to breach her power armor were actually rather high.

Who was this man? He was like no other human that Samus had ever encountered before in her life. He was stronger, faster, and easily more dangerous. As her feet planted on solid earth again, Samus pointed her rifle at him and unleashed another controlled burst of rounds at him. However, once again, he had little trouble dodging to either side in order to smoothly avoid anything that came near him. With each dodge, the mysterious warrior also came closer and closer to being within attacking range of the bounty hunter. Once he got close enough, he sliced horizontally with a strike that would have cut Samus in half, if she hadn't spun into the air and make her way over the blade. As she descended, she switched her rifle into missile mode and let one off. She watched as the warrior put his sword in the path of the missile, and she saw as it exploded into a large fireball.

She hit the ground with both legs, and put forward one of her arms for extra support. Nobody could survive a missile to the face in just standard clothing, so the battle was over now... right?

Wrong.

As the smoke and fire of the explosion fizzled away, Samus looked in shock to see the warrior standing there, his sword down by his side. This was like some kind of nightmare, Samus started to doubt that this thing was even really human. He had to be some kind of robot made to look human, it was the only thing to explain why he didn't even seem fazed by her missiles. He smiled at her, and turned his body towards hers so that he didn't have to turn his neck.  
"I'll give you this much, you certainly have skill. However..."

He rose his sword again and held it in both hands.  
"Nothing you do will stop me, you will not win this battle.

Samus found herself shivering a little, though that didn't stop her from trying to piece together what her next actions should be. There had to be something that she could do, something that at least slowed this guy down. She wasn't about to give up so easily, she was still primed and ready for battle. However, before the man could make his next move, it became rather apparent that Samus wouldn't have to worry about fighting alone anymore.

From the side, a massive energy blast roared from out of nowhere and smashed into the warrior's side, this actually knocked him to the side, where Samus promptly fired several more missiles at him before he could get up. Explosions roared into the sky from the impact of the missiles, but when the smoke cleared, the black robed man was completely gone. The only thing that he left in his wake were a mass of black feathers. Samus walked forward and grabbed one of these feathers, curious about where they had come from, and how he had vanished like that. She gripped the feather tightly in her hand, a feeling crept into her heart that she hadn't seen the last of that mysterious warrior.

Before she could reflect on it further, a male voice spoke out towards her, undoubtedly the source of the energy blast.  
"You alright?"

Samus looked over to see who had interrupted the fight, and she found herself looking at yet another unusual figure. He wore all blue armor, the only thing uncovered was his face. A rifle was grafted onto his right hand, much like Samus had herself. However, she watched with a bit of surprise as the rifle became enveloped in a bright light, and the next moment, there was a regular hand. While still taking in the sight of this person, Samus lowered her weapon and stood straight up. If he had taken the time to help her out, she doubted he was an enemy.

The blue armored man stepped forward, his voice was serious, yet polite and kind at the same time.  
"I'm sorry if I interrupted your fight, but I had a gut feeling that he was the one in the wrong."

Samus, finally seeing the need to say something, kept her words short and concise. This person wasn't one of her friends, she had no reason to say anything other then what she had to.  
"Who are you?"

The man smiled and offered his hand.  
"I'm just known as X, nice to meet you."

Samus paused for a second before she decided to shake his hand. It only lasted a brief second before she withdrew it again and returned it to her side.  
"Samus Aran."

X took a few steps back, he started looking around to take in his surroundings more.  
"So, Samus, do you by any chance have any information about this place?"  
"Huh?"

X crossed his arms, speaking with a more businesslike tone now.  
"Well, a while back, my partner and I saw something that looked like a black hole not too far from here. Being as headstrong as he is, my partner decided to jump in the hole to see if anything on the other side presented a threat to our world."  
"And?"  
"I jumped in after him, crash landed in this forest, and haven't seen him since."  
"Uh-huh..."

X knelt and brushed his hand across the dirt, as if he were analyzing the ground for anything unusual that might be present in it.  
"Since then, I've been looking all over the place for him, and trying to gather as much information about this place as possible."

Samus turned back and started to make her way over to the slope that led down the hill.  
"Well, good luck with that."

X got to his feet and walked after her, raising his voice lightly so that she would hear him.  
"Hey! Where are you going?"

Samus turned back towards him.  
"I've got my own things I need to investigate."  
"Well, hang on, why don't we team up for right now?"

X caught up with Samus, who had stopped moving, she spoke in a tone that was more curious then cold.  
"Why would you want to do that?"  
"Well, it's always safer to travel with allies, right? And besides, if that sword guy comes back for a second round, you might want somebody else fighting with you."

Samus lowered her head, nobody before that man had been able to deflect off her attacks with such ease.  
"True enough..."

X smiled a bit and started making his way down the slope again.  
"Alright then, let's get going."

* * *

"Um, you said your name was Zero, right?"

the red Maverick hunter turned back to look at the massive suit of armor that had started following him around a little while ago. Something that was rather strange about it was the fact that a child's voice was coming from it.  
"Yeah, what's up?"

The suit of armor started tapping his index fingers together.  
"well, I'm kind of looking for my brother right now, did you see him by any chance?"

Zero crossed his arms and rested up against a wall.  
"What does he look like?"

The suit of armor held his arm down to about his waist.  
"he's about this tall, blonde hair, wears a red coat... Gets REALLY mad whenever you call him short."

Zero lifts his gaze upward for a second.  
"Um... nope. Doesn't ring any bells. Sorry."

The suit of armor sunk down a little, getting a bit mopey all of a sudden.  
"Aww, dang it."

Zero pushed himself off the wall and looked down the road he was walking.  
"Tell you what though, if you want to stick around with me, I'm going to be making a world tour of this place trying to figure out what was up with that black hole. Maybe we'll run across that brother of yours while we're at it."

The suit of armor perked back up again, the energy in his voice made it seem like the kid in him was smiling, that is, if he had a face to smile with.  
"really! You'd do that!"

Zero shrugged.  
"Sure, why not? It's not like you'll be in the way or anything like that."  
"thank you Mr. Zero."

Zero laughed briefly and waved him off.  
"Oh please, Zero's just fine."

With that, the red maverick hunter started making his way down the road, the large suit of armor followed him with a great deal of perk in his step.  
"Oh, by the way, My name's Alphonse Elric, you can just call me Al though."  
"Nice to know, Al."

The two of them walked in silence for a while.  
"Um... Zero, you're really not as shocked as most people are when they realize that there's no body in here."  
"eh... I've seen weirder things in my time."

After a considerable length of time walking through what had by that point become crowded city streets, Zero accidentally shoulder bumped a familiar face. He wore a rather tight yellow suit, with strategically placed stripes of black along the ribcage, along with it he wore blue boots and blue gloves, two large black spikes jutted out of the eyes. Zero's eyes widened in surprise, this wasn't a person that he had ever expected to encounter again.  
"W-Wolverine!"

The man looked quite shocked as well.  
"Zero?"

Al looked at the two men, confused at how they seemed to know one another. However, he didn't say anything right at that moment. Instead, he just let the two of them figure out what they were going to say, and go on their way. It didn't take long before Wolverine started walking down the city streets once again, and Zero headed down his own path as well. After several seconds of silence, Al spoke to Zero in an uneasy voice.  
"Um, Zero. Did you know that man?"

Zero looked up at Al, grateful that the crowds were starting to clear up after they got past a particularly rough junction.  
"Yeah, he and I fought side-by-side a while back. But, it should be impossible for him to be here, his world and mine are completely different."  
"W-Worlds?"

Zero sighed a little, realizing that he had just dug a small ways into a story that was far deeper then he could cover with a brief recap.  
"Yeah, it's a long story."

Zero then turned his head forward and started thinking aloud, the fact that Al could hear him was a fortunate coincidence.  
"Then there's something more to that distortion then I thought. It could be like what Doom and Wesker pulled..."

That wasn't a very pleasant thought, Zero had to uncover more information about the distortion, and he had to do it fast.

* * *

The red maverick hunter wasn't the only Zero that was currently interested in the events of the rift. The masked leader of the black knights walked swiftly down the hallway that would lead him to the command bridge, where he would likely have new information on the recent developments of the last few days. It was true, that massive tremor that had rocked the world during a recent engagement had wiped out a majority of the black knight and Brittanian forces. However, the development of the group known as 'celestial being' certainly threw a wrench into things. They were a group that claimed that they wanted to end war, and they did so through armed interventions. Twice now, the black knights and Brittanians have had to call off major attacks because of their interventions. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but Celestial being had access to such high level knightmares that they outclassed even the Lancelot and the Gurren Mk II.  
"Celestial being and the black knights have quite a bit in common. Perhaps this is something I could use to my advantage."

Zero had a difficult task ahead, he needed to assess the power of celestial being, find a weak spot in their armor, and drive a sword right through it, to ensure that they never attempt one of their interventions again. Or, even better, if he could somehow take control of celestial being, he could use their amazing weapons for his own causes. It would be extremely difficult for Zero to pull off such a thing, but he had a secret weapon at his disposal, something that none of his opponents could match.

he had the power of geass.

Geass was a power granted to Zero by a mysterious woman, and it quickly turned into one of his greatest weapons. The power of a person's geass varies from person to person, Zero's power forces a person of his wishing to do absolutely anything he orders. For example, if he were to order a person to die, that person would smile and say 'gladly' and then promptly throw themselves into traffic, or fire their own weapons into their brains. This power, while absolutely astonishing, came with a few conditions. First, Zero had to make direct eye contact with the person he ordered, for this reason, he had a sliding compartment that revealed his right eye installed into his mask. Second, he could only use it on a person once, as the geass permanently affects their mind.

If he were to use his geass properly, Zero could possibly take control of celestial being with little difficulty. Of course, Zero preferred to use geass as a last resort, since he could only affect a person once. That being the case, it was best to save it for when he needed it. If it was possible for him to accomplish his goals without using geass, he would do so, simply for the sake of keeping his secret weapon in reserve for another day.

Zero walked into the briefing room and stood on the center podium. Beneath him were the leaders of the black knights, the key players on his chess board.  
"Black knights! We have something very important that we need to discuss tonight, the future of the entire world may be decided upon our actions!"

Shinichiro Tamaki, one of the more brash and forward people in the room, laid back in his chair and spoke loudly enough that the entire room, even Zero, heard him.  
"Ah! That's Zero for you, always hyping stuff up WAY out of proportions!"

The face of Zero's mask locked instantly onto Shinchiro, he spoke in a voice that wasn't threatening, but escalated to demonstrate that he meant business about his speech.  
"I say it affects the entire world because it does! We are here today to discuss the group known as Celestial being!"

The room went silent upon his bold words. Everybody knew who Celestial Being was at this point, but nobody wanted to talk about it. Supposedly, this group had brought about the deaths of several Black Knights, but they had killed even more Britannians, so it wasn't a total wash from the Black Knight's standpoint. The person to speak up again after an extended silence was Kaname Ohgi, the man that led the group of freedom fighters that would later be known as the Black Knights, once Zero appeared and took control. He was a reasonable, level headed person, and Zero had actually come to trust in how understanding and observant he could be. Even though he was far from the strategic mastermind that Zero was, the group of 'terrorists' could have done a lot worse then him for a leader.  
"Um... Zero, don't you think messing with Celestial Being could get kinda dangerous? We don't exactly have the weapons at our disposal to fight on an even level with them."

Before Zero had a chance to rebuttal, the voice of a young woman chimed in. Kallen Kozuki was the ace pilot of the Black Knights, she was the pilot of the most advanced weapon that the Knights had at their disposal, the Gurren Mk II. With Kallen at the controls, the Gurren was able to match the legendary Lancelot of Britannia blow for blow in battle. To this day, she had battled the white Knightmare to a standstill on several occasions, neither one of them able to get the upper hand on the other.  
"Oghi's right, Zero. Even my Gurren can't take down all of those advanced monsters. Hell, I doubt I'd even be able to hold my own against even one, if it were fighting for keeps."

Both Kallen and Oghi were very right in their sentiments. However, neither of them knew about Zero's geass, the secret weapon that he could use to make all of Celestial Being his puppets, if he were to put himself in the right position for such a thing. As such, he did something that was commonly called a 'classic Zero move' by those around him, and he revealed just a little bit more of his plan, if only to pique their interests even more. If Zero were good at anything in the world, it was putting on a show.  
"We're not going to fight them... We, the Black Knights, shall take control of them!"

After a few initial seconds of the expected outrage, Oghi once again spoke up, being the voice of reason to Zero's outlandish plans.  
"You can't be serious! How are we going to take control of an organization more mysterious then us, more powerful then us, and more well hidden then us!"

Zero spoke in a calm voice yet again.  
"It is a simple task, we share the power of idealism."

Zero had inspired silence in the room once again, eventually, Oghi spoke again, as he tried to get more information out of Zero, concerning his more developed plan.  
"What do you mean by idealism, Zero?"

Zero looked down back at Oghi again, his voice calm as he spoke.  
"Oghi, why do the Black Knights fight?"  
"To destroy Britannia, right?"  
"Wrong!"

Zero backed up and held his arms outward.  
"We fight for the safety and equality of all living beings! It is only because Britannia opposes our ideals that we fight! The Black Knights fight for the creation of a better world! And such is the same as Celestial Being! If we were to work hand in hand with them, we would easily be the most unstoppable force in all the world!"

There was silence in the room after that, as everybody absorbed the idea that Zero had presented, however, such an idea would be outlandish for anybody to try and carry out. Trying to even get Celestial Being's ear was certain to be impossible, then again, Zero had this interesting tendency of doing the impossible. As such, his men were inclined to believe that he was capable of making it happen. Even though they all had their doubts, Zero had done such things before, they had faith in him that he'd find a way to make it work.

After a decently sized silent pause in the room, Zero felt a small buzzing in his pocket, his phone was going off. Without even having to check it, he realized what it was about.  
_"Oh no. The festival!"_

He kept his composure cool as he put his hands down, in a smooth motion he reached down and killed the buzzing, in such a way that nobody noticed.  
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have several matters that I have to attend to. You all will receive your orders in the coming days. Until then, you are dismissed."

Zero turned around and walked out of the room, once he was out of eyesight, he began to pick up his pace a little bit.  
_"I can already hear it now..."_

_

* * *

_

"Lelouch! Where on earth have you been!"

The blonde haired president of the student counsel scolded her black haired vice-president as he made his way slyly through the door. He smiled lightly at her and tried his best to wave her off with a single sentence.  
"Oh, I just had a few other affairs that I had to take care of first, sorry that I'm late."

Milly, the president, simply crossed her arms and looked away.  
"Hrmph, like you really expect me to believe that, Lelouch. Nothing should be more important then the cupid shoot out and costume competition!"

Lelouch couldn't help but shiver a little, each and every time that Milly held a festival at the school, Ashford Academy, things got out of hand, and festival would likely be no exception. Lelouch could name several instances in the past where his goals were almost comprised because of the president's antics.  
"Like I said, I'm sorry. So, how much did I miss?"

Lelouch took a seat as Rivalz, another one of the student counsel members, filled him in. Rivalz was often tagging along whenever Lelouch went out to gamble on chess games. Since Lelouch was betting on himself for the win, he often walked away with a pretty hefty sum of money. Of course, the only real reason that Lelouch let Rivalz come along was because Rivalz owned a motorcycle, and Lelouch needed transport.  
"Oh, we were just putting together a couple of the last minute arrangements for the festival. You know, where all the vendors are gonna go, what kinda games are gonna be available. Basically, all the boring stuff."

Lelouch rested his hand on his cheek and looked away.  
"Oh good, so I'm just in time."

Even though Lelouch was able to hear Rivalz going on about something else after that, his mind had already started to drift on to other matters.  
_"Celestial Being... How am I going to get them to fall into the flock?"_

For a moment, he glanced over at the other members of the student council, who were all putting together arrangements for the upcoming festival.  
_"People outside of the battlefield don't know about their interventions. But that's to be expected, with the media blackout that happened after the cataclysm and all."_

Lelouch looked down at the table again, he was lost in thought.  
_"If only there was a way to-"  
_"Lulu?"

Lelouch snapped out of his planning session, there was only one person in the entire academy that called him 'Lulu'. Lelouch turned his gaze upward to see a very pretty orange haired girl standing over him. Shirley was another member of the student council, and it had become increasingly obvious that she harbored a crush for the young mastermind. Lelouch wore a look of surprise as she snapped him out of his thoughts.  
"What is it, Shirley?"

Shirley leaned forward and crossed her arms, she often got annoyed whenever Lelouch ignored her, or spaced out like he was doing just a moment ago.  
"You were daydreaming again, weren't you?"

Lelouch sat up straight in his chair, he let out a small chuckle.  
"Yeah, you caught me."

Shirley simply sighed before she continued to speak, it was more an attempt for her to nag at him then anything.  
"Oh, Lulu, one of these days you're going to-"

She was cut off rather suddenly as Milly teased her.  
"Oh! My poor, sweet Lulu, when are you ever going to stop daydreaming about other gir-"

Shirley chimed in again rather quickly, a large blush washing across her features.  
"Madam president! Will you stop talking like that!"

Lelouch made the mistake of looking out the window that rested to the immediate left of his chair, where he caught sight of something that piqued his interest. Once again, the yelling in the background took a back seat to Lelouch's own thoughts.  
_"That man's acting rather odd..."_

There was a person outside that was acting rather erratically, behavior that Lelouch normally only saw when a person was under the power of Geass, this could be worth investigating. If there was another Geass wielder on the premises, Lelouch needed to know about it. Lelouch rose from his chair just as Shirley was defending herself from another one of Milly's playful teases, he spoke in a level tone, as though nothing was wrong.  
"I'm going to step outside for some fresh air."

More focused on the incident outside, Lelouch hurriedly made his way to the door, as quickly as he could without seeming overly eager to get out. As he opened the door, he heard Shirley shout out after him in a frustrated voice.  
"But you only just got in here!"

As he shut the door, he could already imagine Shirley letting out a frustrated growl, or something of that effect. But nonetheless, he had far more pressing matters to deal with now.

Lelouch quickly made his way outside, where he made sure that he kept a careful amount of distance between him and the man. This man, about in his mid thirties, certainly far too old to be in a private academy, was scribbling something in the dirt. Lelouch hesitated for a second before he decided to get closer, as he did, he spoke out in a cautious voice.  
"Um... Sir, are you alright?"

As he proceeded to get even closer, he could start to hear a bit of crazed laughter coming from the man. Lelouch could already start to feel a bit of a chill run up his spine, something about the way he was laughing was extremely creepy. Lelouch turned his head to the side so that he could see what the man was carving into the dirt, however, the writing was a bit too erratic for him to try and distinguish what it said. Lelouch got closer still, and cautiously placed his hand on the man's shoulder.  
"Um... Sir?"

The man suddenly let out a loud shout and grabbed at his chest, he fell to the ground and started to writhe in pain. Lelouch jolted backwards, terrified by the sudden action.  
"S-Sir!"

Before Lelouch had time to react, another man's voice rang out from behind Lelouch.  
"What the hell, Lelouch?"

Lelouch turned his head to see his childhood friend, Suzaku Kururugi, run up at an incredible speed. Suzaku knelt down on a knee and held his hand at the guy's chest as he turned his head to face Lelouch.  
"Lelouch! What happened here?"

Lelouch's hands started to shake. He was no stranger to death, but he had no choice but to play the part. If anybody would be able to catch on to any change in behavior from him, it would be Suzaku.  
"I-I don't know! I just came over and saw that this guy was acting strange, so-"  
"Save it for later! I'm going to go get a doctor! You stay here with him!"

With that, Suzaku was gone again. Lelouch, however, stood mortified as he watched the man suffer from his spontaneous heart attack.  
_"What the hell is going on here? What kind of power is this?"_

_Meanwhile_

At a cafe that was across the street from the school, a young man that seemed just a little bit too old to be a student ate a light meal. He kept a cautious eye on the scene as his test subject acted according to plan, though there was the complication of that student that came across the scene. Still, such risks existed when he decided to hold his test in such a public place. He finished his tea and rose from his chair, leaving a generous tip for the waitress as he walked away.  
_"So, the notebook really is capable of killing people... Even better, I'm able to control the actions leading up to their death, and the way they die."_

As he walked away, he couldn't help but grin.  
_"This is going to be the start of a new world... And I... I will be the god of it!"_

_

* * *

_

Far, far away from the world of school students, giant machines, and killer notebooks, a lone green armored super soldier made his way along the calm riverside. It had been a long time since he heard the peaceful sounds of trickling water, it had been years since he saw green pastures, the likes of which haven't been ravaged by war. Master Chief was a born soldier, that was his role in life. As such, he was always in the battle field, always fighting. This change of pace was certainly a shock for him, though not entirely unwelcome.

For the first time in his entire life, he was able to calmly walk along the road, with little fear of coming across an enemy ambush, without the need to keep his guard up for enemy forces just around the next corner. Chief really didn't know what to do with such an experience. After a few moments of walking, the voice of the A.I. in his head chimed out, eager for conversation. For such an advanced A.I. as Cortana, all of this time without having any thing to dedicate her memory to had to be maddening. Chief figured that she had found something to waste her time sorting out, possibly that black hole incident that landed the two of them on this world.  
"So, Chief, what exactly are we doing?"  
"Well, that pale guy we ran across a while back, he was definitely human. Odd, but human."  
"And?"

Chief paused for a second as he stepped around a piece of brush.  
"So, if there are humans on this planet, there's the possibility that we can make contact with the UNSC."

Cortana put the pieces of the puzzle together extremely quickly.  
"And that means that we'd be able to find a way home!"  
"Exactly."

As he walked silently down the road, it didn't take long before he saw the faint silhouette of another person walking in the opposite direction. Chief looked forward in curiosity, wondering who this person could be. Both men continued walking down their respective routes, getting closer... and closer... and closer...

After a little while, Chief could start to make out the faint linings of an orange, armored hazard suit. As they got closer still, Chief could see that he had a reasonably thick beard, and wore glasses. As they got within eye sight of one another, Chief looked directly into the other man's eyes. He saw the eyes of a killer, a man that wasn't at all afraid to pull out a gun if his life were in danger. This was a man not to be messed with, Chief knew the gaze all too well. The bearded man's eyes didn't seem hostile though, he was just prepared to defend himself if things got out of hand. As their respective roads met, the two men stopped and exchanged glances, as though they were sizing each other up. Chief could tell right from the start that the other man saw him as a non-enemy, it was clear from the space between the bearded man's hand and his gun that he wasn't looking for a fight with Chief. For what may have been a complete minute, the two men just looked at one another, the only sound was the ringing voice of the AI in Chief's head.  
"... Men are so weird."

Before either man had a chance to start walking down their respective paths, a rustling sound came from some of the nearby trees. Both men were warriors who were well trained, and paranoid enough from their respective wars that they immediately drew a gun on any sudden sounds. Chief pulled out the assault rifle on his back, and the scientist pulled out a submachine gun that he carried with him. After a second of silence between the two, a gargantuan monster crashes through the trees and lets out a loud roar. It was like a demon had escaped from hell, and then a mad scientist had captured it and given it cybernetic implants. This 'cyberdemon' proceeded to storm towards both soldiers, it had clearly gone berserk, and was just destroying anything within reach.

Master Chief, upon seeing the demon, was reminded a great deal of the flood, a parasitic race that took over the corpses of dead species and turned said corpses into vile abominations against nature. While it wasn't exactly the same as what he was used to, this was certainly no friend of humanity. The scientist as well seemed like he had seen a great deal of extremely freakish and inhumane monsters, as he wasn't shell shocked in the slightest either. Cortana spoke in a cool voice in Chief's head as the demon grew closer and closer.  
"What's the plan, Chief?"  
"What else? We shoot it until it dies."

As Master Chief dashed off to the side and started to open fire, Cortana muttered to herself, though it still came through the audio lines.  
"Well that's a pro tip if I ever heard one."

As it turned out, both Chief and the scientist had the same idea, as rapid fire rounds came from either side of the cyberdemon. The demon, in turn, simply turned towards the scientist and started lumbering forward. Chief watched as bullet after bullet tore into the demon's flesh, but it didn't even look like it was annoyed by it. It just continued to trod step after step towards it's target, like nothing had even the slightest impact on it. This was a rather eerie matter for the scientist as well, it was clear from how quickly he retreated from the oncoming beast and stopped his opening fire. While it's back was turned, Chief got the same idea that rounds were useless, so he put his rifle on his back after the first clip ran out, and sped forward. With a bold jump, he was on top of the monster's back, he then climbed his way to the head and delivered three or four solid punches before the demon managed to grab him and throw him forward like a toy. Considering the fact that Chief weighed about a tun and a half with all of his armor, that was an incredible display of just how strong this monster was.

The scientist had to roll out of the way in order to avoid the oncoming metal missile. As Chief collided with the ground, he recovered swiftly and spoke in an agitated voice to the scientist that was recovering from his own tumble just a few feet away.  
"So, bullets are useless. You got any ideas?"

Wordlessly, the scientist pulled out a gun... if one could call it a gun. It was an orange cylinder with three prongs at the end of it, a trigger in his hand. Chief had seen a weapon that was vaguely familiar, in the form of the sentinel laser that the guardians against the flood dropped when they were destroyed. Chief watched as he expected some kind of massive beam to erupt from the weapon in the scientist's hand. What he wasn't expecting, however, was for that gun to pick up a nearby destroyed chunk of tree, and fling it at the beast with hypercharged speed. As he watched this, Cortana's voice lit up his audio array, her voice rather excited.  
"I can't believe it! That gun is actually capable of causing a gravitational distortion!"

Chief rose all the way up to his feet and watched as the scientist flung yet another chunk of wood at the monster, which crashed against it's head with a loud crunching sound.  
"I see how it works. So we're just going for blunt force now, huh?"

He moved himself around to where he would eventually be around the back of the cyberdemon, he had decided that it was time for another rodeo. As the demon continued to focus it's attention on the scientist, who was still firing a now dwindling stockpile of tree wood at him, Chief made another jump onto the massive monster's back. This time, he went straight for the kill and clobbered at the beast's neck instead of the top of it's head. It became quickly obvious that the demon felt those hits, as it let out a howl of pain before it fell to a knee as it started to thrash wildly in an attempt to free itself of the green super soldier that was laying siege on it. The scientist took advantage of this opportunity, as he saw that the Spartan would have the demon quite occupied for the next several seconds. He put his orange cannon away, and pulled out a simple, steel crowbar. With the metal bludgeoning device in hand, he sprinted towards the front of the cyberdemon and jumped of it's down knee, and upwards towards the exposed underside. He then sunk the metal bar into the flesh and ripped it out the other side with strength only slightly inferior to that of a Spartan. The demon let out one last yelp of agony as the orange armored scientist executed it, and it fell onto it's side.

The cyberdemon was down, and neither Chief nor the Scientist needed to waste more then a single clip of ammunition to make it happen. Chief got off the now deceased monster and took a moment to confirm the kill before he turned to the scientist. Even though the bearded man was now covered in demon blood, Chief offered his hand for the other man to shake.  
"Couldn't have done it without you."

The scientist looked at the hand in surprise for a few seconds before he nodded and shook the hand. Chief began to speak to the very silent man again after a few seconds.  
"Well then..."

He glanced down at the orange suit, and happened to spot a name tag on the left shoulder.  
"Doctor Freeman, it's been a pleasure."

Chief would have then gone his separate ways from Freeman, however, before he could move, the trees began to rustle again. Because of this, both of them immediately, once again, drew weapons and pointed them directly at the source of the rustling. But this time, it wasn't a gargantuan demon that burst out, it was a man in a black and red costume with two katanas on his back, and two handguns at his side. Again, this was a rather unusual sight for both the Spartan and the Doctor, but it wasn't anything they needed to open fire on.  
"Whoa-ho-ho! Easy there, big guns, no need to fill me with holes."

Both Chief and Freeman took a step back and put their guns away. Meanwhile, the strange man put his fists on his hips and muttered to himself.  
"First that vampire manages to ditch me, and now this... It's been a BAD day for ol' Deadpool. I mean really, what kind of luck does a guy have when-"

Chief and Freeman exchanged a brief, confused glance while the strange man named Deadpool went on his little tangent. Freeman had his eyebrow rose a bit to demonstrate the confusion in his mind, while the Chief's own confusion was just as obvious, though not visible. After a brief exchange of glances, the two soldiers both looked back towards the strange man, who had by now reaching the end of his rant.  
"But none of that matters anymore anyway, because now I have YOU GUYS!"

Chief was the one to speak up.  
"You do?"

Deadpool nodded, holding up an index finger by his face.  
"Yeah! This is why I love crossovers, this right here."  
"Crossovers?"

Deadpool went on to continue talking, completely ignoring Chief's one word inquiry about what he meant by 'crossover'.  
"And besides, I gotta get back at somebody in this land of awesome encounters for stealing my MO."  
"... Your MO?"

This time, Deadpool acknowledged the statement, he used it as fuel to further his tangent.  
"Yeah! Some black cloaked warlock is running around giving guys like me a bad name. The guy kills BABIES for Bea Arthur's sake! That's not cool!"  
"... Guys like you?"

And Deadpool was back to ignoring the Chief. It was at this point that Chief looked over to see Dr. Freeman standing on the sidelines, content to watch this little display without putting his two cents in.  
"I mean, where's the fun in that? I'm all for a killing good time, but there's some things you just don't do! One of them is hit a fangirl beehive with a big stick, which the writer already did anyway, and the other is kill anybody below the age of consent... of death."

Miraculously, Deadpool then stopped talking for a moment, which gave Chief a solid chance to actually contribute to the conversation.  
"So were exactly do me and Dr. Freeman fit into this?"  
"Well! Traveling's always better when the main hero has underlings, and I'm pretty sure both of you guys have good motivation to stick around and see where I take you. I mean, Chief, you do me a solid here, and I could hook you up with a one way trip back to your buddies, _I have connections._"

Chief didn't know which part was more surprising, the statement that Deadpool could actually help him, or the fact that Deadpool knew what he was looking for. However, Chief knew to expect the unexpected, if this person knew who Chief was, it could be possible that he knew how to get the spartan back to UNSC territory. Besides, it wasn't like Chief had a great idea about what else he could do. Chief decided to humor this strange man, and continue to carry out his own personal investigation on a way back to the UNSC whenever he could.  
"Alright, I'll humor you on this."  
"See? I knew you'd come around."

Chief then turned and looked at Freeman, who looked like he was rather zoned out of the conversation, and staring at something far out into nothingness at that point in time.  
"I think his boss is gonna tell him he has to."

_In Gordon Freeman's mind, the man he hated most in the world appeared before him. It was a man in a suit, he carried a briefcase with him. He spoke in a manner that was calm and collected, but still unusually haunting at the same time.  
"Go along with them... Mr. Freeman... The battles that they will fight will have great sway over the coming events"_

Chief couldn't take these growing mysteries any longer, Deadpool seemed to have an abnormal amount of knowledge about things he shouldn't.  
"Seriously, how do you have all this information about us?"  
"Like I told you, I've got _connections_."

* * *

The three walkers stepped down onto the ruined soil, everywhere the trio looked, there was nothing but demolished buildings, wrecked plains, destruction of a massive scale as far as the eye could see. The woman of the group fell to one knee, as she scooped up some of the charred dirt, the product of entire worlds colliding and being forced together under the power of the all absorbing rift.  
"this is ground zero?

The male human of the group, who wore a blue cloak that covered most of his features, stepped towards her, but remained several feet away as he came to a halt and looked at all the ruination.  
"According to my studies, yes, Elspeth. This is the place where the first worlds collided... This is the place where it all began to go wrong."

The woman named Elspeth ground some of the ash between her fingers.  
"It's like Alara all over again."

The third member of the group was an aged lion man. He wore white robes, and if one was good at estimating the age of his race, he was clearly quite old. He gripped his staff tightly in his hand, and spoke to the two humans with a serious tone.  
"Such wreckage, if we do not act quickly and quell the rift, more worlds will meet this fate as well."

Elspeth rose to her feet, she turned to face the elder lion man as she spoke quickly.  
"Ajani, do you think that this could be the work of Nicol Bolas?"

None of the planeswalkers present wanted to deal with that suggestion, Nicol Bolas could very well have been the most powerful planeswalker in existence. Before his spark awoke, he was an elder dragon, a massive monster that was feared by all on his home world. Due to certain circumstances regarding the fate of his home world, Bolas acquired the ability to walk between worlds just before he would have been killed. On the plain of Alara, in the shard known as Grixis, he hatched a plan that would bring back the entirety of his power. Centuries passed, life went on without anybody being the wiser. However, when all of the shards' obelisks shined, and the time was ripe, the five shards collided, each independent realm of existence that was once it's own world came back together as one. In that moment, a monstrous maelstrom of raw mana erupted from the heart of the world. The dragon known as Bolas channeled this maelstrom into his own body, an act that gave him absolutely unimaginable power.

Were it not for the wise actions of Ajani, who extracted the essence of Bolas' own soul to combat him, all of the entire multiverse would have been consumed by the almighty dragon. It was during this time that the Alara shard known as Bant, a world that Elspeth had grown to call her own, became absolutely overrun by the forces that it had to fight against. Bant became a world without the dark and corrupting influence of black and red mana, as a result, it was a structured, lawful world where honor and fairness were held above all else. When the shards collided, Bant simply wasn't prepared to wage war with the massive beasts, the dragons, and the abominations of nature that were presented before them. Elspeth had lost the closest thing to a home she ever had, and the loss of it had clearly affected her for the rest of her life.

The male human, Jace, crossed his arms as Elspeth said that name. Jace was renowned throughout the multiverse as one of the best wielders of blue mana that had ever existed. He was a master of clairvoyance and illusion, just to name a few of his mental based skills. Even this man, as brilliant and powerful as he was, couldn't hide his fear of the dragon. He himself had a rather unpleasant run in with the dragon in question.  
"Bolas..."

Jace lowered his head in silent thought, since it was clear he had nothing more to say for a while, Elspeth turned towards Ajani, the one who had, in his younger years, been able to defeat Bolas singlehandedly with his ability to draw out the spirit essence of living beings.  
"Couldn't you just draw his essence again?"

Ajani looked down, thinking the idea over for a few moments.  
"I caught Bolas off guard the first time with it. It's possible that he may have come up with a countermeasure to ensure it doesn't happen again."

Elspeth lowered her head down, she began to think silently for a few moments.  
"That's a shame... But there's still no guarantee that Bolas is involved. We need to investigate further before we come to any decisions."

Ajani nodded.  
"That's right, I don't think even Bolas has the power to create a multidimensional rift from nothingness. Even on Alara, he needed the help of the obelisks, and time."  
"So then, first we need to think about who has the resources, power, and knowledge to make such a thing a reality."  
"Perhaps we should go and research the planeswalkers of old. Some of them might still be alive, and it could give us something to work with."  
"Possibly. It's all we've got, in any case."

With their plan decided, Elspeth and Ajani both turned towards Jace, who was still keeping his thoughts to himself. Ajani was the one to speak out to Jace, to get his attention.  
"Are you coming, Jace?"

Jace turned to them and nodded, as the two stepped away and prepared to use their planeswalker sparks, Jace took one last moment to absorb the wreckage in his memory, and recall his own encounter with the dragon that had been haunting his thoughts since he was brought up. More importantly then the dragon though, Jace's thoughts went to one of his servants.  
_"Liliana... do you still work with him?"_

With that, Jace turned and joined his comrades. The three planeswalkers vanished from sight as suddenly as they had appeared._  
_


End file.
